Sprint to Unlock Phones

The tide is finally turning against the carriers, folks. Witness the latest piece of evidence: Sprint looks like they're about to settle a class action lawsuit filed last year in California. The gist: They'll be offering unlocks to outgoing customers so they can use them on competing networks. Since this is CDMA we're talking about here, “competing networks” basically means Verizon with a side of Alltel, but we'll take whatever we can get.

There are catches and caveats, though, there always are. You have to be fully paid up on your bill (that's fair) and the suit only applies to people who've purchased their phone between Aug 28th, 1999 and July 16th, 2007. Which makes us ask: What happened on July 17th?

“We believe this settlement is fair and reasonable,” Sullivan said, adding that the company denies wrongdoing and settled the suit “so we can continue to focus on our business.”